Christopher also recommends buying stocks in South Korea, which he says will benefit from rising exports as China's domestic spending climbs.
Credit Rating
Fitch Ratings and Moody's Investors Service have raised Indonesia's debt to investment grade in the past eight months, with Fitch increasing it to BBB- in December and Moody's lifting it to Baa3 in January.
The credit outlook in India is moving in the opposite direction. India's economy grew 5.3 percent in the first quarter, the least in nine years, and S&P warns that the country may be downgraded unless growth picks up and political roadblocks to decision-making are overcome. A blackout left 640 million people in India without light on July 31, a day after a separate power cut left 360 million people without electricity.
India is suffering from "an absence of effective leadership," O'Neill said. "India always is very proud of the fact it's the biggest democracy in the world, but as I frequently joke with them, India's democracy is so good that it doesn't work."
A phone call to the Indian embassy in Washington seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
Open Economies
With the exception of China, all the MIST nations ranked higher on the Geneva-based World Economic Forum's 2012 trade openness index than the BRIC countries. While South Korea was ranked 34 out of 132 and Indonesia 58th, Russia trailed in position 112 and India at 100.
Turkish stocks have rallied after the government cut its fiscal deficit to 1.3 percent of GDP last year from 3.6 percent in 2010, garnering a credit rating upgrade by Moody's on June 20 to Ba1, one level below investment grade.
Russia's $1.8 trillion economy, after unexpectedly accelerating in the first quarter, is feeling the squeeze from oil prices that plunged as much as 22 percent this year. The price of crude pared its losses in July and is now down 6.7 percent since the end of December. Russia relies on oil and gas exports for half of its budget revenue.